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Project name: The Penthouse at Smith Tower Architecture firm: Graham Baba Architects Location: Seattle, Washington, USA Photography: Tim Van Asselt Principal architect: Design team: Jim Graham, Principal in charge. Jeff King, Project Manager Collaborators: Agent: Moira Holley Presents for Realogics Sotheby's International Realty Built area: Site area: Design year: Completion year: Interior design: Graham Baba Architects Environmental & MEP engineering: Structural engineer: Landscape: Lighting: Electric Coffin Material: Concrete, Wood, Glass, Steel Construction: Valor Builds Collaborative Supervision: Visualization: Tools used: Client: Unico Properties Budget: Status: Built Typology: Residential › Apartment Graham Baba Architects: Built in 1914, Smith Tower was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi upon its completion. No expense was spared in the construction of this ambitious 462-foot-tall building, with interiors finished in rich materials and ornate detailing. Today, this iconic figure in the Seattle skyline houses offices and commercial spaces topped by an observation deck on the 35th floor. The pyramid-shaped peak of the tower is the site of a one-of-a-kind two-story penthouse apartment recently reimagined by Graham Baba Architects.
Despite its enviable position above the city skyline, the base of the pyramid was originally used for a building maintenance office, and the very top of the tower housed a large water cistern for the building’s fire suppression system, which remained into the 1940s. The lower portion of the pyramid, now the main level of the penthouse, went through a variety of uses including serving as office space and a radio broadcasting studio run by infamous Prohibition-era bootlegger Roy Olmstead and his wife Vivian, who was rumored to broadcast coded information for her husband’s rum-running operation during her children’s radio story program. In the late 1990s, the neglected and underutilized space was converted into an eccentric apartment through a 20-year lease. The latest renovation, completed earlier this year, builds upon the unique opportunity of living atop one of Seattle’s most iconic structures, updating the apartment into a fresh and contemporary space that celebrates the character of the building and the particularities of its history and form.
